Do you mouse with your left hand? | Hacker News Reader

Do you mouse with your left hand?

10 pointscranky908canuck23 comments

tl;dr: do you put your mouse on the left, regardless of your 'handedness'?

I'm right handed [note 1] but have put the mouse on the left for more years than I want to say.

When mousen were new, my gripe was, "now I need to flop back and forth from the mouse to the Enter/Arrow/etc" cluster, and that's <whine>Just Too Hard</whine>". Then I found that if the mouse is left of the keyboard, under the left hand, here we go!

Never looked back.

Upside: Two-handed driving: (example) websites: bigscale navigation with the mouse, fine tuning with the arrows, and no need to switch hands.

Downside: (example) On Other People's Machines, fancy mousen that are RH-specific don't work when playing "pass the keyboard (and mouse) [note 2]".

Not sure: "It feels natural": So many years that it's only anecdotal.

I seem to see (or used to, pre-Covid!) that left-mousing (regardless of other aspects of 'handedness') is a minority preference.

So, the question: if you have explored this, what has been your experience?

Notes:

[note 1] I have parents and siblings who are left-handed, but I am "right-handed" based on Intertubes(tm) questionnaires, and day-to-day preferences (knife&fork, etc). I guess that there could be some flexibility from that genetic inheritance.

[note 2] I don't use a 'left handed' mouse (it's a vanilla symmetric thing, and cheap!), and I don't swap the buttons (so, all I need to do at the library/kiosk is pull the cable to the other side). I see this as important: maintain 'lowest common denominator' compatibility.

Years ago I started to suffer from carpal tunnel pain. It was painful to maintain fine mouse movements and click the buttons. Typically the finger movement to click a button would make the mouse move away from where I wanted to click. And the pain in the wrist.

Solved it by placing the mouse on the left with the tracking window covered. I have a trackball for the right hand. So I position the cursor my moving the trackball, lift my finger and then click or wheel with the left hand. Can still click with the trackball if my hand is over the keyboard for infrequent operations. Don't have to think about it and no more wrist pain.

I started to get repetetive strain injury in my right hand sometime last century from drawing with a mouse. I'm an animator so that was a bad thing. Got a wacom for the right hand and started to mouse with the left hand.Turns out both at once is a good way to work. Mouse is better for 3D work that requires precise clicking, and the wacom just nails the process of drawing on a computer. Keyboard sits at the top of the wacom when I need it. Did not take long to learn to be ambidextrous.

I first tried to use my left hand for mousing when I decided that using the mouse far out past the num-pad wasn't ergonomic. It was okay for text/casual work but not quite so good for fine/pixel-oriented work and I was painting some GUIs at the time.

I also try using chopsticks left-handed occasionally which wasn't as hard to do as I thought it might be. When playing videogames, I still mouse with my right hand although my left hand is doing all the actions other than point/click--my right hand still has more accuracy. I have no idea how long it would take to develop that and haven't been trying. [Instead I use a custom keyboard layout making myself incompatible with standards.]

Being able to use a computer differently is important, but now I think that most people could fall back to using the touch pad left-handed without much practice.

Edit: I do remember a couple years back I had shooting pains up the back of my right hand for a number of days. I pretty much totally stopped typing/mousing. At work I paired as 'navigator' rather than 'driving'. I eased back into it, first using my left-hand for mousing. When everything seemed normal again, I eventually switched back to my right without much thought.

That's really cool. I can't say I've tried it, but I remember how cool it was to try the trackball (thumb version) for RSI. It really helped my wrist, but also I could place it just about anywhere, like in front of the keyboard, which was often a very natural feeling.

I'll have to give the other-handed mouse a try, see how it goes. Thanks.

I'm left-handed in most things, including writing. I tried to be a left-handed mouse user for a while, but it didn't stick. Got to be too much of a pain to switch constantly with corded mice on a shared computer at home and at school. Eventually I just became more precise with my right hand and stuck with it.

It does seem a bit weird that my left hand is much more precise with writing and my right hand is much more precise with a mouse, but oh well.

Funny enough my left hand is the hand that started getting finger joint pains. I think it might have been because of hands on the WASD keys for movement in video games had something to do with it, though. I switched to a controller and they seem to slowly be getting better.

Yes you can swap your mouse to your non-dominant hand if you are patient and persist for a few months until it feels totally normal.

I am right handed but changed to mouse with my left.

I am not naturally ambidextrous in the slightest e.g. my left hand cannot be used for writing legibly with pen and paper, and can't really throw a ball very far left handed.

I swapped mouse hands from right to left because of a temporary carpal strain injury.

I was surprised how useful it was having my right hand available for note-taking, etc, that I kept mouse on the left ever since and 20 years later, still going.

Funnily enough I am still excellent mousing with my right hand but never do it by choice nowadays...

Yes - years ago my father mentioned it as a hack some people in his office used to free up their dominant hand. I am very right hand dominant.

I taught myself to use a mouse lefthanded by only playing my favorite game lefthanded. (I won't date myself by telling you what game that was). Within a few weeks it was totally normal for me.

The only downsides are - almost all the new cool mouses / trackballs are right hand designs. And using somebody elses mouse/computer always takes a little effort. It can be very annoying.

I switch to left-handed occasionally, when something's wrong with my right hand. Broken finger on right hand? Badly bruised right wrist? Arthritis pain in fingers in right hand? Switch to left for a week or a month.

Note, by the way, that in both Windows and Linux you can configure the mouse to be "left handed", that is, you can switch the meaning of the buttons, so that you still select with the index finger. (You decide whether that's less confusing, or more...)

I wouldn't call it confusing, but I've stuck with not changing the defaults. Thinking is:

- if it's someone else's machine, it's rude to change the settings

- if it's a public machine, it may also be impossible to change the settings.

- regardless, it's easier to just move it than to mess with the settings as well.

Yes, and on top of that I use a vertical left-handed mouse. I am right handed but my dad made me switch to driving a mouse with the left hand some 25 years ago. I am forever thankful to him for that :) First, you'll be faster because you can use keyboard with the right hand and drive a mouse with the left. Second, load on your right hand is automatically lower. And third, just use vertical mouse for a much more comfortable hand position :)

This sounds like what I was originally getting at.

Interesting that you like a 'special' (ie., not vanilla symmetric cheap'n'cheerful thing) mouse. I have not yet figured out (after [mumble] years) whether I want a keyboard/mouse setup that fits like a custom glove (the perfect mouse, the perfect keyboard with the perfect layout (colemak or some such), foot pedals for the shift keys, etc (haven't tried that, yet)) or a setup that I can make work for me at any kiosk... or some middle position between those two. Currently I'm at "make it work".

Vertical mice need not be too expensive these days. OK, now I use Evoluent Vertical Left 4 (the company bought it for me but IIRC it's $90), but before that I used some barely-not-noname-brand for $25 and it was decent for the money! My biggest complaint is that buttons were a bit hard to press (i.e. you need more force comparing to Evoluent).

Now about keyboard+mouse combo... Yes, it's a bit awkward to carry Kinesis Advantage 2 + Evoluent mouse around. I actually don't do it unless absolutely necessary. If I would have to work from someplace for a few days, I would just carry laptop :)

Trackball user here, with a cheap wireless mouse siting on the desk for variety. I use my left hand most of the time so the right can stay on the number pad, arrows, and enter key. During my busy season I often work eighty hours in six days and then I will switch the trackball or sometimes the mouse to the right to give the left a break, depending on the task I am working on.

I used to switch my mouse to the left when my right hand started to hurt. I even used a rope to prevent my right hand from being able to reach the mouse on the left as switching always took me a bit of getting used to.

No sure if I no longer do this because I switched to a Magic Trackpad or because I no longer work behind my laptop for hours on end.

My left leg/back have been weak and painful for a decade or two, and I suspected it was from using my mouse right handed for just as long and twisting my body accordingly. The guy at physical therapy said they switch their mouse over to the other hand every now and then to avoid that.

Years ago I had pain on my right hand after exessively using mouse. Since then I switch my hand when my right hand gets tired and it is just fine. The only minor annoyance is mouse pointers pointing from right to left.

No, but I do use an external trackpad left of my keyboard. Mainly for drawing programs and sometimes for scrolling. Otherwise I try to (but often fail) to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible.

i switch back and forth,over the period of several months, usually like 2 months at a time. I once had some pain issues with it and found that switching periodically eliminated that, and so I just continue doing so.

I do not switch the meaning of mouse buttons.

I use two mice: one on each side of the keyboard. Then I can switch hands at will.

Are there applications that you have found this helpful/required?

A theremin emulator would make sense, curious about 'standard' applications.

Being able to do it differently for different applications is the application I guess?

I touchpad or mouse with both hands, to balance the stress on hands

I'm right handed but I use my left hand to mouse for RSI reasons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com